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Monday, February 20, 2012

My Two Cents Worth

Today is Presidents Day in the U.S. and in honor of this holiday, I have created nails featuring a president: Abraham Lincoln. His likeness is on the one cent coin, but a recent news story revealed that our penny costs more to produce than what it represents! The one cent coin actually costs 2 cents to make.

I am an amateur numismatist (aka coin collector). Did you know the little letter underneath the date stamped on every U.S. coin indicates where the coin was minted? D is for Denver. P is for Philadelphia, and S is for San Francisco. The San Francisco mint is pretty much closed now. They only mint proof coins. There is also a mint at West Point, but they only do proof coins and American Eagle coins.

I started with a base of Pure Ice Fast Lane. It has that shiny new penny color. It is a frost finish however, so I painted one coat, and then used a technique suggested by Leslie of Polish Art Addiction.

You use an eye shadow brush (a disposable one is best, because you won't be able to use it again) to dab on the final coat. It gets rid of those annoying brush lines! The top nail on this wheel was done with Leslie's technique, the bottom was just brushed on. See? Big difference!

I used bronze, white, and black acrylic paints to do the artwork for this manicure. This was not the easiest design to do.

So here is Abe all done before I sealed him with top coat. I also added a date and mint marking. I guess I did my nails in Denver. :)

On my right hand I painted some cent symbols on my ring finger. Big Money! I am a high roller, what can I say?

I have uploaded all of the entries for my 500 Followers contest. You can check out the entries on Facebook by clicking here. Please vote for your favorite by 'liking' the picture. Votes will be accepted through Friday, February 24th, 2012 at 5pm Pacific Time. Good luck and thank you to everyone who entered!